The present invention relates to a furnace for the heating of products such as slabs, billets, rough castings and the like. More particularly, the present invention relates to such a furnace having a furnace chamber including a support arrangement for supporting the products in a manner to achieve two-sided heating of the products, i.e. heating of both opposite major surfaces of the products.
Furnaces of this type are used in rolling mills and forges for the purpose of heating rough metal castings to a desired temperature for processing, i.e. for rolling or forging, whereby the need for heating of the product from all sides thereof will be apparent.
Known furnaces of this type are of the pusher or rocker bar construction. Within such a furnace, the products to be heated on opposite sides rest on water cooled support pipes. These support pipes however, due to their cooling system, considerably increase the energy demand of the furnace, since the coolant of the cooling system draws heat from the furnace. Additionally of course, the mere necessity of the provision of the cooling system is an operational disadvantage.
Furthermore, in this conventional type of furnace, considerable wear occurs during operation, in spite of cooling of the support pipes, since there is a continuous friction or forging between the products to be heated and the support pipes. This necessitates periodic repair of the support pipe system, with the undesirable necessity of periodically shutting down operation of the furnace. A further disadvantage of such known furnaces is that cooling shadows result on the products to be heated wherever the product directly rests on the cooling support pipes. This may cause qualitative shortcomings of the end products made from the material thus treated.